In Her Hands
by Artemis08Luna
Summary: Kara Danvers is Supergirl, but Supergirl is not Kara Danvers. (ESTABLISHED KARIVARRY) Please read author's note before reading!
1. Chapter 1

**_AN: IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN INFINITY WAR BUT WOULD LIKE TO NOT BE SPOILED, PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. ALSO, HAVING SEEN INFINITY WAR WOULD GREATLY BENEFIT YOU BECAUSE YOU KIND OF NEED CONTEXT MAYBE._**

 _Truth: I LOVE all the MCU movies BUT I would never watch Civil War again. It was a cinematic masterpiece but when I watched it at the theater, I had three panic attacks. I couldn't handle it... I wish I was joking._

 _Anyway, to me, Infinity War was just the right amount of angst for me, notches below Civil War, which means I can write this and feel good about myself._

* * *

Kara Danvers is Supergirl, but Supergirl is not Kara Danvers. Supergirl is the girl of steel, the girl who can fly, the girl who is invincible. Kara Danvers is normal. Supergirl should not be Kara Danvers, but if the opportunity presents itself, Kara Danvers should try and be Supergirl, hero to all.

"Kara, Kara... Kara."

Her name is chanted over and over again. She's not Supergirl right now. She's donned in the cape, but she's not Supergirl. She's Kara.

She's Kara Danvers, a regular person who just _has_ to have pesky emotions and a heart that's splintering.

"Kara."

Oliver's gone. One minute, he's injured but right there in their arms; the next, he's dust.

"I'm here, Barry."

"It... hurts."

She's Kara Danvers, not Supergirl, and yeah, at this moment, she wouldn't want to be.

"You can... You can let go, Barry."

She's Kara Danvers, not for the world or herself, but for him.

"Kara."

She's Kara Danvers, nice to meet you.

"I'm here, Barry. I'm here."

No, she's not Supergirl.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

She's not the girl of steel; her heart's made of glass.

"Oliver?"

She's not the girl who can fly; she crashes face first.

"He's... not here. But he loves you, Barry."

She's not invincible.

"I know. You both do. And we love you, too, Kara."

If she had been, she would have been a hero to all. Not like now, when she couldn't even save her own family.

"Barry."

She's Kara Danvers _and_ Supergirl, but she has to remember—

"I love you, and I'm sorry." _Dust in her hands, slowly, like Ollie is. Torture; that's what this is. Dust all over her fingerprints; they're part of her identity now: a murderer._

—Kara Danvers came before Supergirl.

* * *

 ** _inspired by that goddamn infamous scene: "i dont feel so good."_**

AN: _My birthday's coming up... It's on the fourth of August and can somEONE PLEASE GIFT ME WITH A KARIVARRY MASTERPIECE BY THEN BECAUSE YAY BIRTHDAYS?_

 _also thank you_


	2. Chapter 2

_AN:_ _i re-read the first part and realized i needed this to have a conclusion because goddammit, kara deserves better._

 _also there's out-of-character swearing and basically... just out-of-character everything. yeah, just a heads up._

 _oh and another warning:_ _THIS PIECE IS RIFE WITH INFINITY WAR SPOILERS_

* * *

It haunts her: Barry's glassy eyes, apology barely tumbling from his lips, and Oliver's pained smile when he kisses her palm to tell her it's all right... just right before she's left clutching at red dust that scatter all around her.

Earth-38 is on the brink of complete annihilation, with debris and abandoned cars as far as the human eye can see. The apocalypse has come early, knocking on this universe's door for its time. Dust. All around her is just dust, red, all mixed together like some kid's abandoned art project.

She flies her way to the broken state of the DEO, to Winn's desk, to retrieve her spare interdimensional extrapolator she'd given Winn in case something happens to hers or Oliver's, which, in this case, have been destroyed in the aftermath of everything straight from a nightmare.

She has no idea where Clark is, she lost her phone so she can't call Eliza, and James just totally ghosted. Alex is gone, and so is Winn, but J'onn still exists.

"Kara—" But J'onn stops himself when she catches a glimpse of Barry and Oliver fading away in her mind. He points at a broken monitor that relays everything they know about all of this; it's not a lot but she'll take it. "Good luck."

She's grateful for his blessing, and she's thankful Winn had upgraded the extrapolator. She opens up a breach to the epicenter of all this destruction: Earth-199999.

* * *

She leaves an imprint on the asphalt below her when she lands. When she gets up slowly, she's greeted to a semi-circle of people, all their weapons aimed at her.

She regards them quietly, faces aged with mourning and bruises.

One of them (a woman in black, with short reddish hair that painfully reminds her of her sister) takes one step forward, cold cruelty and mistrust behind those red-rimmed, calculating eyes. "Who are you?"

"I'm someone who can help unfuck your fuckup," She says in a calm yet dangerous tone that makes them realize just how much of a potential threat she is.

Normally, she's not one to cuss, or be blunt. She's grown up shy and a bit awkward, but she's made sure to be nice to everyone she meets. But now? She's lost her sister, her best friend, her significant others, and possibly her adoptive mother, on top of having lost her planet already. All niceties had been thrown out the window the moment these so-called heroes screwed up literally the whole span of universes.

The bearded man with the shields stares down at her, like she's someone beneath him. "Doesn't answer our question."

She takes this as a threat and she advances toward them with a single step menacingly, making them all tense around their weapons. "Should that really matter now? Whatever it is you've done, it wasn't just this world that was affected."

The man in the shiny tech armor (a scientific achievement that reminds her of Ray) has his head gear tuck down to reveal his face, and she's just the least bit stunned that's he looks much older than everyone else. She wonders why he hasn't retired, but then she looks around at the chaos and she remembers why.

"What are you talking about?" He asks.

She smiles, void of any humor and tight with agony. "You've decimated my universe and every single one of the others."

"The multiverse theory is true?" Another man, old too like the armor guy, says.

She nods, but doesn't entertain his curiosity further. "You're the Avengers, right? Then let me help you avenge. Because if you don't reverse the hell you've unleashed, I'll kill every single one of you myself."

The man with the shields sighs and orders everyone to stand down. They do so, but very reluctantly and still on their guard. He walks up to her with his arm outstretched. "Steve Rogers."

She really isn't in the mood for pleasantries, but she bites down. "Kara Danvers." Because she's not Supergirl. She wonders if she'll ever be again.

* * *

"Barry?"

He's in front of her, relieved smile that stretches across his face that rivals that of the radiance of Earth's yellow sun.

 _"You did it, Kara."_

"Kara, get back! It's a trick!"

Oliver's there too, emerald eyes shining and big, as if five years on Lian Yu had never happened.

 _"Of course she did."_

"Don't listen to them!"

 _"You're amazing."_

"Kara!"

 _"Of course she is."_

"It's the reality stone!"

 _"She's Supergirl_."

"Kara!"

She screams, her heat vision coming into play as she concentrates all her power on destroying the gem.

And she does.

"Kara, I—" the Captain starts, but she wants none of it.

"C'mon, Cap. We still have two more stones to destroy."

* * *

"I've done the multiverse a favor. It's long suffered from overpopulation. The children from the purge can now wake up with bellies full, and peace everywhere."

She doesn't understand— well, she does and she doesn't. She understands his side (Rao, she does) and actually commiserates with him because no matter what Earth she visits, it suffers from an abundance of a lack of resources. But what she doesn't understand is how he truly believes that killing off half of the multiverse's lifeforms is justice or, as he called it, a _favor_.

Maybe her sense of justice and morals and all that really is flawed. Maybe she is a monster for letting children die from starvation and letting good men turn to illicit activities from financial desperation. Maybe she isn't supposed to be a hero after all.

She flies straight into him, bringing them up high in the atmosphere.

"You're only prolonging the inevitable. Soon, more worlds will succumb to their demise only because you have a black and white perspective on discernment."

Her fist around his chest plate tightens; she's sure her fingers dig into his flesh. "Of course I do," she says through gritted teeth. "I'm Supergirl."

And she punches him in the face, watching him hurtle back down to the surface with speeds that are just a fraction of Barry's.

She glances down at her family's coat of arms that have long been synonymous with hope back on her Earth and realizes it's high time to abandon it.

She came from a family of hope, so how can she keep wearing its symbol when she's long lost it?

* * *

The multiverse had been broken so many times, but they managed to do it: they fixed it, with the help of the time stone.

It's only a matter of time before they realize what price that must have been.

After all, you don't fix a broken mug without seeing where it'd been cracked.

* * *

It's when she's back in her apartment, where Barry dances as he cooks and Oliver dips her backwards to kiss her, is when she realizes it's her that's broken.

No one else remembers it, but she does. Every painstaking detail of it.

 _(Dust.)_

But it's okay.

 _(All over her hands.)_

The multiverse is fixed now.

 _(DEO: rubble)._

It'd been broken, but now it's fixed and the only thing broken now is her.

 _(Dust, every-fucking-where.)_

But that's okay.

She's long retired from being Supergirl.

 _(They were both dead._

 _And now they're not._

 _And they keep looking at her like she's going to break._

 _She's long been broken.)_

She's just Kara Danvers.

* * *

 _AN: Fuck I didn't fix it. I just made it worse! I WROTE THIS WITH THE INTENTION OF GIVING KARA LOVE THAT SHE DESERVES BUT I JUST MADE IT MUCH WORSE! Ugh, and she's so out of character. Sorry._

 _I get that there are only 53 Earths in the Arrowverse, but I'm taking creative liberties. Marvel's main comic universe is Earth-616, and the MCU's universe is Earth-199999._

 _Thank you._


End file.
